A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but, since it was directed by Gregg Araki and since it was available on YouTube, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, after watching this movie, I finally managed to finish Araki’s Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy 30 years after watching ‘The Doom Generation’. Obviously, it reminded me of ‘Nowhere’ which I saw recently but it made sense since Araki made all these movies during the same time period. I actually slightly preferred this one though. Indeed, even though it was fun to spot all the famous actors showing up in ‘Nowhere’, there were just too many characters involved which wasn’t the case here. I was also glad Araki this time didn’t add some surreal bits like this alien apparently abducting people in ‘Nowhere’. Both movies focused on the social lives of some young people living in Los Angeles in the 90’s but this movie was more straightforward, even if there was no plot whatsoever. Eventually, I did like that there was no plot, it made the whole thing really stood out but, to be honest, I’m afraid the end-result was rather dry though. On top of that, even though they focused on a smaller group of characters which I did appreciate, none of them was really interesting after all. I guess most average people are actually rather tedious which might be true but, then, I’m not sure why I should spend 90 mins watching them. The only exception was James Duval, a guy who kept showing up in Araki’s work at the time, and he was once again quite intriguing, even though he basically played the same character in all these movies. Unfortunately, I’m afraid everybody else was just too forgettable. Eventually, it might raise the question if it is actually possible to make a realistic movie involving some average people without delivering something rather boring? It should be possible but this movie displayed how tricky it can be. I also didn’t care much about the ending. I get that the mood was pretty bleak (I would have certainly felt a connection with these characters if I would have watched this movie in the 90’s during my teens) but ending with Andy seemingly killing himself did seem overdramatic. Sure, he did seem to be lost but he didn’t seem to be suicidal. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Gregg Araki’s work. 

7/10